The Brief

For our creative project, we are required to conceive, research and execute an animation with sound that responds to one of our provided project briefs. Reading through each of them, I decided that brief #1 suits my animation tastes and abilities the best.The idea of basing an animated piece on my own interpretation of a poem really does engage me, and I hope it will lead to the development of a strong project. The animation needs to respond to ideas I have drawn from tutorials workshops and from study I have undertaken, as shown on this process blog.

Brief #1: Animated Story

Devise an animation with sound in response to a poem of your choosing. It should not be a literal transcription, but instead convey a personal response to the overarching qualities of the chosen poem.

I decided to start researching poems by some of my favourite poets, so see if I could find any with themes that particularly resonated with me or a subject matter that provoked an emotional response.
I read through poems of Richard Brautigan - but all were too short and often had an explicit or adult subject matter. Seamus Heaney's poetry was set in too fixed a location and with too definite a narrative of a storyline. Nothing in the works of Sylvia Plath resonated particularly with me. I had the feeling that I wanted to deal with mythology of some sort; for my subjects to be in the natural world yet perhaps with creatures of locations constructed from my imagination, as Miyazaki does in 'Nausicaa.'

Amoretti LV: So oft as I her beauty do behold 

Edmund Spenser

So oft as I her beauty do behold,

And therewith do her cruelty compare,

I marvel of what substance was the mould

The which her made at once so cruel-fair.

Not earth; for her high thoughts more heavenly are:

Not water; for her love doth burn like fire:

Not air; for she is not so light or rare:

Not fire; for she doth freeze with faint desire.

Then needs another element inquire

Whereof she might be made; that is, the sky.

For to the heaven her haughty looks aspire,

And eke her love is pure immortal high.

   Then since to heaven ye likened are the best,

   Be like in mercy as in all the rest.

A Dream Pang

I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
‘I dare not—too far in his footsteps stray—
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But ’tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof. 

Robert Frost

On Looking Up by Chance at the Constellations

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves -
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drout will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night. 

Robert Frost